COLLECTING GHOST NETS IN THE BALTIC SEA - WWF

The poorly designed organisational and legal
system, where previously introduced excise duty
exemptions were reduced with no possibility of taking
advantage of the provisions of the Act on the
Product fee and deposit fee, eliminated the grassroots
initiative of recycling waste polyolefins
(OPOs) enabling the production of high quality liquid
fuels. On the one hand, the 3×20% programme
has been implemented (20% savings in the consumption
of energy, reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions, including CO 2
, and increase in the use
of renewable sources of energy, biomass and
biogas) and new clean carbon technologies have
been developed, but on the other hand unwise
decisions have led to the bankruptcies of companies
engaged in advanced chemical recycling for
the production of fuels.
That is why it is worth analysing and considering
other technologies which may be used to revive the
grass-roots initiative that emerged in Poland in
© Lithuanian Fund for Nature
2002–2006 with regard to the production of fuel by
recycling waste polyolefins. One of the most interesting
options is pyrolysis.
In search of the possibilities of disposal of ghost
nets for the purpose of this project, the Department
of Polymers at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering
of the West Pomeranian University of Technology
in Szczecin was contacted, as well as several
establishments engaged in waste disposal in
Poland (e.g. EkoVita in Brzeg Dolny, Eko-Green in
Poznań and PMS Bartnicki in Warsaw). The most
promising was the contact with “Dagas” from
Warka, owner of a plant for pyrolysis of rubber and
polymer waste, which agreed to take a batch of
ghost nets for trial processing. A 35 kg batch of nets
retrieved from the sea by the Border Guard was
collected from the Port Master’s Office in Dziwnów
and delivered to the Warka plant in early February
of this year. Due to low temperatures, the pyrolysis
plant was shut down temporarily, but it was agreed
that, after the commencement of its operation,
WWF Poland would receive a report with results of
the experiment. Since “Dagas” activities include
design and manufacture of pyrolysis plants, it would
be advisable and desirable to install such plants in
selected fishing ports. The operation of the pyrolysis
plant owned by “Dagas” is described at: http://
prima-warka.home.pl/fum/Pyrolysis.pdf.
it would be advisable and
desirable to install such plants
in selected fishing ports
Material recycling
Material (mechanical) recycling involves the treatment
and processing of polymer waste to obtain
new products. To ensure good results of the process,
it is necessary to use clean, homogeneous
polymer material waste. Therefore, this method is
unsuitable for recycling retrieved ghost nets, which
usually contain organic impurities in the form of
remains of organisms attached to the nets; moreover,
the nets are not homogeneous (they contain
a combination of different materials, fibre and steel
ropes and metal parts).
30 COLLECTING GHOST NETS IN THE BALTIC SEA